Metropolis Bienalle 2007
Copenhagen, Denmark
10 – 16 September 2007
Copenhagen
Another Europe sized version of the show, which is becoming a bit of a favourite, allowing a number of larger statistics to go out, which always help to give a bit of a ‘wow’ effect when people first enter. The venue was the foyer of various Danish arts and cultural agencies. We set up quite a lot of the show over the weekend when the building was closed, so when people arrived back to work on Monday morning their foyer had been transformed into a mountainous rice landscape. Some were pleased to see this, others were confused and some didn’t see it at all and ploughed straight through the population of Denmark.
Supported by the ‘Hello Denmark Campaign For Diversity’ we included a range of statisitcs about migration (including a new one for us -“People Who Live Outside Their Country Of Birth”). As wth other countries Denmark has an increasingly diverse population, made up of many different nationalities, which we attempted to represent in piles of rice. Despite our best efforts this section always causes us some grief – one Russian visitor here thought there weren’t enough grains of rice to represent the Russian people; in other places even when we think we have every nationality covered you can guarantee that someone will visit the show from a country that we have not found a figure for. It always feels worth doing though – you can trace the history of the world a bit through how, when and why people have moved around it. For instance whilst watching football in “The English Pub” in Copenhagen we were led to wonder how an Englishman, a Northern Irishman and an Australian all ended up working behind the bar. (There’s a joke in there somewhere …)
Visitor numbers were a little low here early in the week as the space is only now becoming a regular exhibition space. As is often the case word of mouth did its job and at the weekend numbers were healthy. Without wanting to encourage low attendance there was something very enjoyable about being in the space in the late evenings, just us and the rice with the light fading outside and the internal lights gradually taking hold, making the piles of rice glow.
Credits
Performers: Chris Dugrenier, Jake Oldershaw, Louisa Pearson, Bernadette Russell, Karen Stafford, Craig Stephens, Jack Trow.
With: Thomas and Linda Magnusson
Images: Karen Stafford
Concept: James Yarker
General Manager:Charlotte Martin
Advisory Producer: Nick Sweeting
Today – fantastic. Deeply moving and prevocative. Beautifuly executal concept, poignant and humerous, touchig and obviously stoicly loving.
Steve
In my opinion you’ve achieved a change of thought in my mind as well as for the people I’ve talked to and brought here to see it.
Audience Member
Really cool! When I came in I immediately phoned some of my friends to come and see it – NOW!
Casper